I have problems coming up with names for my characters, so I liked this solution – if only to fire up my own synapses. It’s an old blog post from a blogger I’ve come to trust, but I’ve checked the links and they’re all still live. Now I’m going to have some fun coming up with more descriptive names for my characters.
Let me know which of these sites you like best – or if you know a better one.
I was having this conversation with MMJaye, and she was observing how hard it can be to find the right name for your characters. First, I was reminded by this hilarious comic by Tom Gauld:
Comic by Tom Gauld, tomgauld.com
Then, I remembered all the research I went through when I was looking for character names for my epic fantasy series, Pearseus (in my sci-fi collection, The Power of Six, I cunningly avoided using names). The people on Pearseus are the descendants of Earth’s high society, so they’d be from all over the world. It’s an indecisive writer’s worst nightmare; the sort of situation that keeps you up all night: I’m looking at a character that’s half Persian, halfIndian. What is a common name for that, I wonder? Hmm…
So, when I came across the Character Name Generator for fun, I giggled like a schoolgirl. It’s a website that…
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Many thanks for sharing, Cathy (and for the kind shoutout). I’m so glad you found it useful 🙂
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I have been using my family tree to give me names for some of my characters and census returns with names of neighbours.
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The ones I know about are Phyllis, Maud and Gertrude, which have their place, but not in any of my stories.so far (maybe that’s a a writing group activity: write a character around a name picked from a hat) Up to now, I’ve been looking up favourite baby names for the decades prior to the setting of my story, but I’d like something more interesting for a couple of fantasies I’m working on
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I had a great great aunt called Hannah Ann and a great great great uncle with twin daughters Rosetta and Roseanna. Knowing my family he would probably realise that he could shout out, “Rose make me a cup of tea” and be bound to have at least one of them make one. I had a Great Aunt Bertha too, not a common name now.
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Now you mention it, I recall comments about an Aunt Bertha too from my childhood. I think it used to be popular before someone nicknamed that howitzer Big Bertha
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I have failed to remember some old party game where you came up with the name you would have as a porn star. But it was similar to Rossis’ only lewd!
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